In the wake of the news.

Conservative Bears face a scary test

November 16, 2001|By Rick Morrissey.

OK, forget the Packers game. That was nothing. That was kid stuff, chump change, toe jam. That was one of those emotion-fueled games, one of those games powered by hype and history. The heat of the moment in a Bears-Packers game is enough to cause global warming.

What's just ahead is bigger and weightier, but I don't need to remind you of that. I don't need to remind you of the pageantry, the implications, the import of the Bears' next challenge.

This is Buccaneers Week!

What's that, you say? There are military juntas that have a longer, richer history than Bears-Bucs? You say this matchup doesn't exactly get the blood flowing?

Well, it had better because this could turn out to be the most important game of the season. This one feels dangerous. I picture a bad guy holding the Bears hostage: One wrong move and the season gets it.

Oh, I know that sounds hysterical. The Bears had a six-game winning streak before losing to Green Bay last Sunday. This is a team with a defense that can squeeze the life out of an opponent's sense of hope. This is a good team.

But good teams don't always play like good teams. The Buccaneers could write a textbook on the subject.

There is one question that is beginning to settle over Sunday's game in Tampa, and it's an uncomfortable one for the Bears. Maybe it's a question a 6-2 team shouldn't have to answer. Maybe it's insulting and unfair, but it's there nonetheless:

Do the Bears truly believe in themselves?

That's what Sunday's game is all about. It's as much a battle to believe as it is a battle to beat a talented team that never seems to be all it should be. Do the Bears believe that what they've accomplished is real or some strange cosmic occurrence? They are coming off that 20-12 loss to Green Bay, a loss in which their offense turned to mush. Was that reality arriving on a delayed flight?

"When you have success, everybody is watching you," running back James Allen said Thursday. "We can't sit around and watch what we're going to do. We have to make it happen. Everybody wants to know how we're going to react. It's the character of a winner.

"If we learn to bounce back from losses, that's going to strengthen us down the line. I think this game is very important just for that reason--to see how well we're going to respond. You can't let one game make or break your whole season, [but] this is a statement we can make to ourselves and to our fans and to other teams we're going to be playing."

If the Bears can get through this game, come out with a victory, then it sets the tone for the second half of the season. A victory says that a trip the following week to Minnesota doesn't seem like such a big deal, that two games against Detroit look tasty and that a visit to Green Bay looks like a nice chance for revenge.

If the Bears lose Sunday, it could be the top of a slippery slope that heads to some cold places, such as Green Bay on Dec. 9 and maybe the coldest place of all, a potential loss to winless Detroit. The Lions have to win sometime, don't they?

The Bears have to have this one.

They have to make a few things right against Tampa Bay, but the first wrong that needs righting is the offense. I listened to offensive coordinator John Shoop talk Thursday about the Bears' approach to third-down situations of 10 yards or more.

The philosophy is that the Bears "value the ball" and don't want to do anything risky, he said. That's why we're seeing so many dump-off passes on third-and-long. Better a punt than an interception. Better a 4-yard completion than the possibility of failure. Perhaps that's why the Bears are 1-for-31 in those situations.

"To think that you're just going to drop back on a three-man rush on third-and-15 and throw the ball right at the marker for 15 yards is fantasy," Shoop said.

I didn't know third-and-15 was like climbing Mt. Everest. The good news is that of all the injuries Bears quarterbacks could possibly incur, torn rotator cuffs would seem to be the least likely.

The Bears' confidence is on the line here. A season might be on the line, too, overwrought as that might sound.

Maybe the heat from the Bears-Bucs rivalry amounts to a 40-watt light bulb. It's not Bears-Packers. But the Bears had better be emotionally ready. It shouldn't be difficult. This is Buccaneers Week, after all.